Hi all,
I’ve been using the Live TV DVR for a while with a Hauppage DVR card to record OTA broadcasts on Windows 10 and it’s worked great. I used MCE Buddy post-recording to transcode MPEG to H264, remove commercials, etc. Primary streaming client is a Roku 3 via Ethernet, connected to a Pioneer 5.1 HDMI receiver to handle the AC3/surround passthrough.
I recently purchased a HD Homerun Extend because of the built in transcoding, figuring I could cut down on server CPU use and post-recording processing by having the Extend do it in real time as it records. Did a test recording of a 1080i OTA 5.1 AC3 broadcast at “Highest Quality”. File looks great, I can direct play on my laptop, awesome. However, when I try to play back on the Roku 3, Plex did a transcode of H264 (hw) to H264 (hw). I tried another recording, this time using the “High Quality (30 fps)” setting. That recording direct played on Roku 3 with no transcoding whatsoever, but in inspecting the stream it was only 720p and not 1080i like the source.
From my research, it seems to me like the Extend’s high quality setting in Plex has too much data/is too new for the Roku 3 (either reference frames, H264 level, etc.) to handle.
My question: I want to direct play to the Roku but I don’t like the 720p result from the “high quality (30 fps)” setting and I’d really like to get away from the post-processing transcode step I will otherwise have to do with the “Highest Quality” setting. Is my only solution to buy a new Roku box–will that even work, and if so which model–or is there some other setting within Plex I’m missing?
Any help/thoughts appreciated!
If you want to do a little reading on the HDHR Extend Transcoder profiles in the HDHomeRun HTTP Development Guide you will find the following starting at the bottom of page 2:
Transcode Profiles:
• heavy: transcode to AVC with the same resolution, frame-rate, and interlacing as the
original stream. For example 1080i60 AVC 1080i60, 720p60 AVC 720p60. → →
• mobile: trancode to AVC progressive not exceeding 1280x720 30fps.
• internet720: transcode to low bitrate AVC progressive not exceeding 1280x720 30fps.
• internet480: transcode to low bitrate AVC progressive not exceeding 848x480 30fps for
16:9 content, not exceeding 640x480 30fps for 4:3 content.
• internet360: transcode to low bitrate AVC progressive not exceeding 640x360 30fps for
16:9 content, not exceeding 480x360 30fps for 4:3 content.
• internet240: transcode to low bitrate AVC progressive not exceeding 432x240 30fps for
16:9 content, not exceeding 320x240 30fps for 4:3 content.
The HDHR Extend Transcoder names do not match what Plex displays, wish they would, but Plex Highest Quality correlates to HDHR Heavy setting, and Plex High Quality is HDHR Mobile. As you can see from the Highest Quality (Heavy) description mentions transcode to h264 and that resolution, frame rate, and interlacing are the same as the original stream. The High Quality (Mobile) setting transcodes to h264 progressive and at 1280x720 30fps . So the High Quality (Mobile) setting deinterlaces the video as well as changing the resolution and frame rate. With the Roku the Deinterlacing from what I understand is the real key. I know when using my Roku Stick I see constant buffering even when set to High Quality. My First Stick/Fire TV/Shield TV have no issues viewing the same channels with even the Highest Quality setting, not High Quality, so getting 1080i video. I only have the Fire Stick and not one of the newer Ultra devices so not sure if the newer devices handle interlaced video content better.
Very helpful, thanks. That unfortunately defeats the purpose of the Extend compared to the Hauppage PCI card, but water under the bridge at this point. I was hoping to get to a point where I could have a Raspberry Pi as my server (for power consumption purposes) and get away from the heavy transcode/comskip functionality. Oh, well.
Thanks for the insight–makes a lot more sense now.
Side note: do you see a lot of benefit with the additional RAM vs. a more pedestrian/stock 4 GB? I’ve got more or less the same config as you do otherwise–i5 3470 and MCE Buddy/Comskip donator crank through a 30 minute recording in about 20 minutes.
For Plex alone no I can’t imagine there is any benefit if that is all that is running on the system. I run other things on my computer and when I am doing work at home on the computer the additional RAM helps. I was running 16GB before and decided to bump it up when RAM prices were pretty reasonable, $100 for additional 16GB around Black Friday time in 2016. I have never had just 4GB in my system but routinely run around 24% utilization on the 32GB I do have so if I was only running 4GB OS would be using PageFile routinely as I would be using double the amount of physical memory in the system.
For mcebuddy I use the mp4 unprocessed to simply remux ts container to mp4. I then run recordings I plan on keeping through Handbrake to transcode to HEVC for permanent storage. The HEVC conversions can take quite a while depending on the quality and length of recording. One day I will build a new system with a 7th or 8th Gen i7 CPU that will better handle the video conversions. Tested same recording on a 6th Gen i7 that we built for my son a while back. Recording on my i5-3570K for a 1080 60 minute show (40 minutes without commercials) can take upwards of 5-6 hours to convert to HEVC, on his system same show was taking around 25 minutes.
